The Trump Swamp

As a former intelligence professional, I have to admit that I'm troubled by the link between President-Elect Trump and the Trump Organization's murky relations with foreign countries, leaders, and businesses. All of the reporting in just the last few months on both the Trump Organization and Foundation should have triggered more concern and scrutiny, but it never seemed to stick because it was just business. He was a businessman, not a politician, and it was just business. Here's why I'm troubled...

Thousands of people who work in certain government jobs need to qualify for a security clearance. Employees must provide personal and financial information, such as foreign travel, foreign contacts, income, financial holdings, real estate, etc. Foreign investments would definitely come up!

The point of providing all this information for a clearance is to determine not only trustworthiness to maintain the clearance and protect vital national security information, but also to flag any potential conflicts of interest (financial or otherwise) and/or vulnerability to bribery or blackmail. And of course, any criminal activity would certainly be brought to light.

Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and the Trump Foundation encapsulate exactly the kind of conflicts of interests that would impact security clearances and cast a dark cloud on trustworthiness.

Most unsettling to me is the nefarious Russia connection: Trump's adoration of Vladimir Putin; Russia's hacking of the DNC and John Podesta's emails to benefit the Trump campaign; Paul Manafort's ties to the Ukraine; Carter Page's ties to Gazprom; and Moscow's contact with the Trump campaign...just to name a few. And yet the FBI contends there's no there there. The greater intelligence community would beg to differ just on the optics alone.

Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald reported extensively on the Trump Organization's foreign investments and business ventures in at least a half dozen countries, most of which were rife with corruption, fraud, and scandal in the host countries leading to convictions of some of the foreign players involved. And those are just the ones Eichenwald was able to dig up. The Trump Organization's failed and/or dubious business ventures could jeopardize relationships with important allies like South Korea, India, Turkey, and the UAE if the temperamental Trump decided to retaliate against them for canning his business investments. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, we don't really know how much or to whom Trump is beholding because despite all his empty promises, he still hasn't released his tax returns.

David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post has detailed Donald Trump's apparent misuse of the Trump Foundation to pay legal fees, make campaign contributions, and buy personal items that have no charitable purpose. The misuse was egregious enough to prompt the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to open an investigation into the foundation, which discovered that it did not even have the required certification to solicit donations. The foundation was promptly ordered to stop fundraising in New York State. According to the same reporting, there is no record of Donald Trump donating to his own charity since 2008. And again, since he won't release his tax returns, we don't know how much he's given to charity, if at all.

More potential conflicts could come to light during discovery for a lawsuit against Trump University that begins on 28 November in San Diego. There is another lawsuit gearing up in New York. A third investigation in Florida may have had the most traction, but will probably never see the light of day since the state's Attorney General Pam Bondi declined to proceed or cooperate in any investigation after receiving a $25,000 campaign contribution from the Trump Foundation. The donation has since been legally rectified personally by Trump, but the optics of the timing of the donation and the decision not to move forward in a Trump University investigation are highly suspect.

Donald Trump said that he didn't care about his company anymore because he was more focused on being president. His attempt to mitigate any potential conflict of interest by putting his company in a blind trust, which would be in the control of his three oldest children, is laughable. To add insult to injury, Team Trump is inquiring about security clearances for his kids since they'll be part of the transition team -- advising him on national security matters and personnel choices -- while running the family business and its undisclosed foreign assets and business ventures. Although the president is not obligated to put assets into a blind trust, it has been customary for wealthy presidents to do so. My point is, either do it or don't do it, but don't try to bullshit the American voters with some half-hearted, non-nonsensical gesture of good faith.

Donald Trump promised to end government corruption and "drain the swamp" if he got elected. He spent the better part of a year and half railing against Washington insiders, lobbyists, pay-for-play, and crony capitalism -- not to mention constantly excoriating Hillary Clinton for being the poster-child of all that's wrong with Washington and bestowing the "Crooked Hillary" moniker upon her. What we've learned about Donald Trump and his dealings to this point may not have been illegal, but they are shady as hell and sparking investigations all over his periphery. Since the election, Trump has surrounded himself with lobbyists and insiders and set his company up for a grand-scale pay-for-play operation run right out of the White House through Manhattan. He seems to be draining the Washington Swamp and building the new Trump Hotel Swamp and Casino.

There is a line between illegal and unethical. I certainly hope that the media, Congress, and most of all the voters are keeping tabs. This is not the change he promised he supporters.